Bricklaying for Dummies
by Random Guise
Summary: The retelling of an old joke as a sequel to the 1933 Laurel and Hardy film "Dirty Work". It's always nice to fix what you mess up, but be careful out there! I don't own these characters, and no bricks were harmed during the writing of this story.


**A/N: Short follow up to the Laurel and Hardy classic "Dirty Work" (1933).**

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Bricklaying for Dummies

The hospital doctor looked down on the patient lying in the hospital bed. Much of the large man he beheld was wrapped in an assortment of bandages and plaster casts, with an additional order of traction. He pitied the man, but at the same time was grateful that the case had presented an excellent example for his interns in the science of triage; the classification of the severity and urgency of the myriad injuries was invaluable and the fact that they were all contained in one bed was unprecedented in his tenure. "So Mr. Hardy, I think we've managed to locate and treat all of your injuries. For the record, just how did you come to such a sad state?"

The patient turned his head slowly until he stared at the thin man standing on the other side of the bed. "Him!" he managed to say with a surprising vehemence. The man continued to stand gripping his hat in front of him, but started to stammer and cry.

"Now now, Mr..."

"Laurel" he managed to get out in a squeaky voice.

"Now now, Mr. Laurel" the doctor continued in his attempt to soothe the distraught man. "I'm sure you couldn't have done something like this. Why, it must have taken a gang of a dozen men to do this kind of damage!" he said, sweeping his hand across the seeming miles of wrappings that entombed Oliver Hardy.

Stan Laurel composed himself quickly. "Well," he started in a British accent "I didn't mean to do it; we're friends _and_ business partners. We were rebuilding a brick chimney that we destroyed earlier because..."

"No need to bore the doctor with all the small details" Oliver interrupted. "Let _me_ tell the story. Suffice it to say Doctor, we needed to rebuild a chimney that was in need of repair - my associate and I have some experience in the field. It was a large job on the top of Professor Noodle's roof, so we rigged up a pulley at the roof's peak and hoisted up several loads of brick, mortar and tools for the job. It was a tall house of three stories, and I'll tell you climbing that ladder was tricky."

"Ah, so you fell off a ladder! That's quite..." the doctor started.

"My good doctor, my friend and I are professionals! We certainly know how to use a ladder safely; we managed to get Professor Noodle's butler Jessup to hold the ladder for us while we climbed up safely. By using our expert skills we were able to complete the repairs by late in the afternoon and came down to inform the professor that the job had been completed. He agreed, but insisted that we remove the excess materials left on the roof since we had vastly overestimated the amount of brick needed. By then the butler had left the premises..."

"So you had Mr. Laurel hold the ladder while you climbed."

"No, don't be ridiculous. I'm much taller than Stanley..."

"...and Ollie is wider too" Stanley interjected.

Oliver gave Stanley a dirty look and continued. "That wouldn't be safe of course, so I held the ladder and stayed at the bottom while Stanley climbed to the top and loaded the barrel. We brought down the tools and mortar, and moved onto the matter of the excess bricks."

"I thought he might be getting tired raising and lowering the barrel after such a long day, so I tried to help by putting all the extra bricks in one load" Stanley said as he nodded his head. "It took some doing but I managed to pack them _all_ in."

"But he didn't tell _me_ that, unfortunately – I thought he was just having a hard time bring them over" Oliver went on. By now a pair of nurses had stopped by the bed and were listening intently to the story. "That's when the trouble began."

He took a deep breath to gather his energy for the next part. "Of course we tied off the rope that was lifting and lowering the barrel to a post located on the ground below. Well, after Stanley yelled that the bricks were ready to come down I untied the line. The loaded barrel immediately started to plummet down, pulling me up off the ground."

The doctor looked at Oliver. "That must have been a lot of bricks" he noted dryly.

Disgusted somewhat at the implication, Oliver agreed "As a matter of fact it was. I didn't want to fall, so I held onto the rope as I was pulled up quickly. At about the second floor, the barrel and I met going our separate ways with a great impact on my head and left shoulder. Dazed, I was able to continue holding onto the rope knowing the fall would do great damage. I reached the top at the same time the barrel reached the ground below. While I was getting my fingers pulled into the pulley, the bottom of the sturdy wood barrel broke out when it hit the ground, relieving itself of the bricks inside."

The doctor looked at the chart in his hand and started checking off injuries. "Head – shoulder - fingers - check."

"Now that the barrel was empty of bricks it was much lighter than I was so I started to fall, still clutching the rope with my good hand which caused the rope to pull the now empty barrel up. I met my good wooden friend again about the second floor as it crashed into my feet; we parted company quickly as I made my appointment with the ground, landing on my back atop the rough pile of bricks that had been dumped there moments ago."

"Feet - back - check."

"At this point I marveled that I was still alive. I could just make out Stanley's head jutting out over the edge of the roof waving to get my attention to see if I was okay."

"I was concerned" Stan chimed in.

"I weakly waved back, and in doing so released my grip on the rope. The barrel..." Oliver started, with a great sigh.

The doctor looked at the chart again as interns jockeyed for position behind him. "Let's see, we haven't accounted for your stomach injuries yet - I assume that's where the barrel landed after you released it to fall from the top?"

Oliver groaned. "Yes, Doctor. Gravity took its final swing at me as the barrel fell the three stories to land on top of me. Am I going to make it?"

"Mr. Hardy, as painful and numerous as your injuries seem to be, I assure you that none of them are going to be fatal and you'll recover in time to resume your career with Mr. Laurel - although you might consider another line of work, if you want my non-medical opinion."

"Thank you Doctor; I tend to agree. I would have given it up sooner but I only agreed to repair the chimney so that Professor Noodle would change me back from a chimp into a man."

The doctor's eyebrows shot up as a nervous twitter spread through those listening. "Really? A chimp you say? If you would be so good as to wait a minute Mr. Hardy, I'd like to call a few more colleagues over to hear _this_ explanation. And we're going to need some chairs..."

The End

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**A/N: They don't seem to have a category of their own, but here's a tribute to both the comedy pair and a joke that probably predates their work.**


End file.
